Rob and I married in 1994 and were happy raising our three daughters. But a few years ago Rob began to change. He bought a motorbike, shaved his head, covered himself in tattoos and started to hang around with a mob of rough bikies. I knew he was smoking marijuana but as he never did it in front of the girls it wasn’t a major concern.
Then, last year, all our lives changed. Rob got behind with our rent and we were evicted. He started to abuse me and the girls. We moved to a farmhouse 15 kilometres out of town and from then on his mates came over every Friday night. They’d spend the entire weekend drinking and taking drugs in the shed, and they rode in and out at all hours of the night and day.
I asked Rob what was going on and he told me they were using and selling heroin and cocaine, then he grabbed me around the throat and warned me to shut my mouth. I knew I had to get the girls away. I was also pregnant again, but I hadn’t told Rob. I’d been waiting for the right time.
A few days later he seemed in a good mood, so I told him. Thank God the two eldest children were at school and the little one was asleep because Rob went absolutely wild. He accused me of having an affair, then he hit me so hard in the stomach I could hardly breathe.
That night I lost the baby and he even made me drive myself to the hospital.
Finally I rang my sister Teresa in South Australia and told her everything, and she promised to help. Her husband John is a policeman, and we hatched a plan to catch Rob in the shed at the weekend.
Now all I had to do was get the girls and myself away from the farm the next Friday.
Rob always told me he’d never let me leave him because I knew too much but I begged him to let me take the girls to his mother’s place, 175km away, for the weekend.
On the Thursday night he agreed to let us go. I rang John to let him know I’d be away for the weekend and everything was set to go. At last it looked as though I was going to get out of the hell I was trapped in.
On Saturday morning I got a call informing me that Rob and six of his friends were at the police station. The drug squad had raided our place and found drugs with a street value of $20,000, plus $15,000 worth of cash and stolen goods. This was a much bigger load than even I knew about.
Rob and his mates are now locked away. The girls and I are living with his mother until I save enough to move to another state. Rob’s mother didn’t know what he was up to and, naturally, she’s very distressed, but I’m happier now than I have been for years, and she’ll never know I was the one responsible for her son being thrown in jail.
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